AZ Alma

Smooth relocation hospital pharmacy

Strategic challenge

AZ Alma is currently based at two campuses (in Eeklo and in Sijsele) and has a hospital pharmacy on-site at both campuses to provide pharmaceutical care. In 2017, AZ Alma will move to a new hospital building in Eeklo, bundling together the strengths of its two campuses.

For the pharmacy relocation to go as smoothly as possible, this process needs to be prepared for. In addition, the hospital pharmacies are also faced with other challenges, including:

More stringent cleanroom regulations;

Traceability of medicines and implants down to patient level;

Automation of the various steps in the dispensing process.

All of these challenges have an impact on how the current hospital pharmacy operates and must be carefully addressed in advance.

Approach

As early as in 2010, a project was carried out by Möbius to prepare for the relocation to the new hospital building. This project focused on:

Mapping the differences between the two campuses (in terms of operation, product range, etc.);

Drafting an implementation plan to prepare for the transition (exchange programme for employees, planning for electronic prescriptions, possible automation, etc.);

Investigating whether physical centralisation before the actual move is appropriate.

In the following years until present, Möbius guided this process, supporting the AZ Alma pharmacy and setting down a structure for its future. In the past few months, for example, Möbius has provided support for strategic issues regarding medicine dispensing and cleanroom operations. Various policy decisions were prepared in working groups together with pharmacy employees.

The working group ‘Medicine Dispensing’ focused on finding answers to the following questions:

How will we organise our dispensing system in the future? Manually or (semi-)automatically? Centralized or decentralized?

What are the options? Do they meet accreditation requirements? What are the costs?

How can we differentiate between the different departments?

How do we achieve the desired quality improvements according to the new accreditation requirements (e.g. bedside scanning and traceability of all medicines dispensed)?

The working group ‘Cleanroom’ had a similar approach, focusing on the question: to what extent is a cleanroom still required in the new building for cytostatics and other treatments?

Result

Collaboration with Möbius has led to the following concrete results:

A project and implementation plan to ensure that the pharmacy is well prepared for the relocation.

Support of strategic decision-making through detailed business cases by and as a result of quantitative and qualitative comparisons for specific scenarios concerning the various issues.

A professional and flexible approach, together with multidisciplinary consultations, have led to decisions that all parties involved support and are happy with!